In the weeks leading up to California’s primary election, a longstanding debate over the state’s so-called “jungle primaries” — where the top two candidates move on to the general election, regardless of party affiliation — got more attention as both Democrats and Republicans feared that no candidate from their party would end up first or second in the race for governor and, therefore, their party would get shut out of the November election.
Fast forward to this past week.
With the primary election over and ballot counting underway, the Associated Press early Friday evening declared that former U.S. Health Secretary Xavier Becerra will advance to the November run-off. Whether a Republican or another Democrat would join him was still up in the air.
The race for governor aside, it was looking like one Democrat and one Republican would face each other in a runoff in most of the other contests for statewide offices, including races for lieutenant governor, secretary of state and attorney general.
So if the fears originally raised by critics of the jungle primary don’t bear out in most of these cases, will there still be interest in reforming California’s primary election system, or will that fizzle?
Steven Maviglio, a veteran Democratic strategist who has teamed with former California Republican Party Chair Ron Nehring on an effort to get a measure on the 2028 ballot to do away with the jungle primary system, believes there would still be an appetite for change.
There are other contests where it appears two candidates from the same party will move on to the general election, based on the latest unofficial election results, he said, pointing out the race for state insurance commissioner, where two Democrats currently sit in the No. 1 and 2 spots. Some of the state Board of Equalization and legislative races could also end up with two candidates from the same party in the runoff, he said.
Beyond that, Maviglio said, even if it turns out that neither Democrats nor Republicans get locked out of the governor’s race in November, the public is now aware that that scenario could happen.
“Voters really understand how this system works now in a way they hadn’t before,” he said.
Maviglio said Friday that the “Undo the Top Two” campaign that he’s spearheading plans to continue its work to qualify for the 2028 ballot.
Before California switched to a top-two open primary, where voters could choose from among all candidates in a race, the state had a closed primary where voters would select a candidate just from among their own party, and the winner would advance to the general election as their party’s nominee. This ensured that each party was represented on the November ballot.
But critics of this format said centrist candidates tended to lose in the primary, while those who advanced to the general election often were more extreme on either end of the political spectrum.
So in 2010, California voters — despite opposition from party leaders — approved Proposition 14, which was backed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, to switch to a top-two primary system intended to give moderate candidates a better chance of advancing to the general election.
Matt Klink, a GOP consultant who worked on that campaign, characterized the conversations about a potential ballot measure to undo California’s open primary system as an “over-reaction” to a worst-case scenario for the governor’s race that might not happen.
“My initial gut instinct is this sounds like a bad idea and a waste of space on what will probably be a crowded 2028 ballot,” he said.
Because Democrats heavily outnumber Republicans in California, if the state reverted to the old primary system, the Democratic race would suck up all the oxygen in many races, Klink said, and little attention would be paid to the Republican race, rendering them irrelevant.
But with the jungle primary system, “having everybody compete at the same time at least allows the electorates to see all of the candidates on the same stage at the same time,” he said.
Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy, believes that while there is still interest in reforming California’s primary system for those who have long opposed the “top two” concept, unless one political party actually gets shut out of the governor’s race in the general election, the sense of urgency for change would die down for the average voter.
“Some of the wind will be knocked out of the sails here, assuming there’s a Republican and a Democrat” in the general election, Romero said.
Moreover, because memories are short-lived, Romero said, if a reform measure makes it onto the ballot two years from now, voters won’t necessarily be thinking back to this time if one of the major parties does not get shut out of the governor’s race.
Maviglio disagrees. He believes that, no matter how things end with the governor’s race, the anxiety caused by its prolonged uncertainty could be a wake-up call.
“The fear … is enough to remain in voters’ minds two years from now,” he said.
“Voters will remember that.”